SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A plan to put a proposed incremental increase in the minimum wage before San Diego voters in November was passed Wednesday by the City Council’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee.

City Council President Todd Gloria is leading a drive to get the proposal, which would also require that employers provide five earned sick days each year, on the ballot in this fall’s general election. His plan, passed 4-1 at the committee level, will now go before the full City Council.

Raising the minimum wage is now the talk of the town with San Diego Interim Mayor Todd Gloria declaring that “no one who works full-time should live in poverty” and calling for an increase in his recent state of the city address. But what would raising the minimum wage mean for restaurants, their employees, and our local economy?

Presented by the Employee Rights Center, Interfaith Center for Worker Justice of San Diego County, and The Center on Policy Initiatives

Saru Jayaraman, author of “Behind the Kitchen Door” and co-founder of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United spoke with us about the incredible story of ROC, founded in the tragic aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and now an inspiring and powerful movement of restaurant workers with a bold agenda to raise living standards of the nation’s second-largest private sector workforce.

San Diego’s minimum wage will rise from the current $8 per hour to $13.09 per hour over the next three years under a plan City Council President Todd Gloria and President Pro Tem Sherri Lightner unveiled on Wednesday.

If the proposal is approved by voters in November, it is projected to boost the wages of roughly 200,000 San Diegans by an average of $2,800 per year once it is fully phased in.

Council members to propose ballot initiative on minimum wage, sick days

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Four members of the City Council announced Wednesday they will try to place a measure on the November ballot that would increase the minimum wage in San Diego and allow employees to have five sick days.

Speaking to a rally attended by about 100 people, Councilwoman Myrtle Cole said no one should have to just scrape by if they work hard, or have to choose between putting food on the table or caring for an ill loved-one.

She was joined by City Council President Todd Gloria and Councilwomen Marti Emerald and Sherri Lightner.

The proposal will be presented in two weeks to the Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, which would begin hammering out details.

Last week, the union-funded Center on Policy Initiatives released a study that said a typical family of four needs to make nearly $85,000 annually to live in San Diego without government assistance — which equates to each adult making more than $20 per hour.

The CPI also said 300,000 households in the region have incomes too low to meet basic expenses.

Richard Barrera, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, said raising the minimum wage in San Diego faster than scheduled increases approved by the state is the goal.

“We have identified this as a priority for the labor movement and for all working families,” he said Friday. “We believe the state law is a step in the right direction, but we would like to see it get to $10 an hour faster than before January 2016.”

Labor also wants to tie increases to the city’s cost-of-living index, a figure determined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The statewide minimum wage is now $8 an hour. A new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this week raises it to $9 on July 1 and to $10 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016.

Mickey Kasparian, head of the county’s largest union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said organized labor has long discussed bringing forward a minimum-wage hike. But a specific proposal is still being developed, he said.